E 

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TlfEODORE 
ROOSEVELT 



A VERSE 
SEQUENCE 



BY 
RUSSELL J. WILBUR 




Class __£j.£.l_ 
Book W6 2 
GopyngM 

COPYRIGHT DKPOSH1 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
A VERSE SEQUENCE 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

A VERSE SEQUENCE 

IN 

SONNETS AND QUATORZAINS 

» 

BY 

RUSSELL J. WILBUR 




BOSTON AND NEW YORK 

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 

The Riverside Press Cambridge 
1919 






COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY RUSSELL J. WILBUR 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



l'° 



a 



JUN 17 1919 



S"V\ \ [ 



^ 



TO MY FATHER 
JOHN EDWARD WILBUR 



PREFACE 

All these sonnets and fourteeners, with three exceptions, 
were written while Colonel Roosevelt was still living; to be 
more nearly exact, just about six months before his death. 

For all their romantic-fantastic character and metrical 
form these verses constitute, for the most part, a contempo- 
rary political document. Their tenor and sentiment presup- 
pose Colonel Roosevelt to be, as when they were written, the 
predominant leader of the reconstituted Republican Party, 
the preeminent "possibility" of that party as a presidential 
candidate for the year 1920. They cannot be read under- 
standing^ except in view of these presuppositions. 

There are thirty-eight pieces in all, written, with four ex- 
ceptions, during the month from June 23 to July 24, 1918; 
between twenty-five and thirty of them during the three weeks 
ending July 14, the date of the death in battle of Lieutenant 
Quentin Roosevelt. 

This goes to say that the Sequence had received its set, so 
to speak, and its tone before this grim sorrow and the fortitude 
with which it was borne elevated the subject of these pieces 
to a plane upon which the freedom and ribaldry of criticism 
with which he is treated in this little work seem somewhat 
unfeeling and irreverent. Something of atonement for this 
indignity was attempted in the lines "Paean Antiphonal" 



C viii 3 

which constituted, before the death of Colonel Roosevelt, the 
last sonnet of the Sequence. 1 

The two sonnets entitled " Fulget Crucis Mysterium" and 
the final sonnet of the Sequence, as now published, entitled 
"Apotheosis," 6, were written since the death of Theodore 
Roosevelt. 

Colonel Roosevelt himself through the good offices of 
William Hard received a manuscript of the Sequence, and the 
great-heartedness which was, generally speaking, one of his 
most striking characteristics is manifest in his acknowledg- 
ments to Mr. Hard and to the author. 

To Mr. Hard he replied: 

"They have come; and I am really much interested in and 
pleased with them." 
, To the author he wrote: 

"I very genuinely appreciate those poems of yours. . . . 
There are two or three of the descriptive epithets which I 
hope I don't altogether deserve — but perhaps I am a prej- 
udiced witness ! E.g., I don't quite see how, since the war came 
to the world, over four years ago, I 'did my friends betray ' by 
the course I took — save the German 'friends' who had n't 
believed that I meant what I said. Now, I should very much 
like to have a talk with you and Hard, together, of some of 
the matters incidentally touched on in these poems — mat- 
ters which concern me only as they concern all Americans who 

1 In a letter to the author Colonel Roosevelt wrote: "Naturally, the 
last poem touched me deeply; there's room for any amount of criticism 
about me — but my sons have rung true metal, and their wives, and my 
daughters and sons-in-law." 



Cfrn 

think as I do. Is there the least chance of your coming 
East?" 1 

A subsequent letter to the author concludes as follows: 

"I wish I could see you and talk of cabbages and kings and 
sealing-wax, and a great many other things ! " 

I must cry the theologians mercy that I have in one of the 
sonnets, speaking loosely rather than strictly and having re- 
gard to the virtual rather than the actual extension of the 
term, referred to the human race as constituting Christ's 
Body Mystical. 

The sonnet "The Highbrow Press " is now somewhat super- 
annuated. The Survey shortly after the death of Colonel 
Roosevelt published a fine number containing a symposium 
advertised upon the cover as "T. R. Social Worker" with 
Miss Jane Addams as the first contributor. The New York 
Nation, since its recent divorce from the New York Evening 
Post, and driven by the exigencies of Oswald Garrison Vil- 
lard's radical pacifism is much less solicitous than formerly 
about vested interests and one hears less and less in its pages 
"the clank of Dives Villard's golden chains." 

In the sonnet "The Cross-Moving Blade" d, Colonel 
Roosevelt is far too sharply disassociated from the idea of 
" world-wide federation." The first in the order of time among 
eminent and responsible contemporary political leaders to 

1 The phrase to which Colonel Roosevelt particularly objected, and of 
which he seems not to have understood the reference, "Thou didst thy 
friends without remorse betray," is contained in a rapid and impassioned 
summing up of his actions and policies consequent to the World War and 
alludes, in terms of scandalous hyperbole, to bis part in bringing the Pro- 
gressive Party to an end. 



1*1 

do so, he explicitly, definitely, and strongly committed him- 
self to the project of a world league of nations to enforce 
peace, in his Nobel Peace Prize speech, at Christiania, Norway, 
on the 5th of May, 1910. During the second month of the 
World War, — to be exact, on September 23, 1914, — in an 
article in the Outlook, he advocated with equal emphasis and 
definiteness the formation of such a league at the end of this 
war. 

In fact, after re-reading these two masterpieces of his states- 
manlike provision, one is obliged to confess that the line 
in the sonnet "LTntuition Bergsonienne " which reads, 
"Where Wilson thinks thou oft canst only feel," is the most 
questionable line in all the Sequence; not only that, it is, 
absolutely speaking, a very highly questionable line indeed. 

One hopes that the readers of the third of the "T. R. 
Dionysus" sonnets will remember that the city of Ishpeming, 
in the northern peninsula of Michigan, was once upon a time 
the scene of a famous libel suit. 

Twenty-one of the sonnets, in a shortened Sequence, were 
published in the New Republic of the issue of August 10, 1918, 
and I wish here to thank its chief editor, Mr. Herbert Croly, 
for permitting their subsequent publication in this little book. 

Russell J. Wilbur 

St. Cronari's Rectory, St. Louis 
March 22, 1919 



CONTENTS 

Proem: a. Grave 3 

Proem: b. Gay 4 

Antitheses: a 5 

Antitheses: b 6 

Elan Vital 7 

The Platitudinarian 8 

The Golden Thread 9 

Sun Spots: a 10 

Sun Spots: b 11 

Temperament 12 

The Philistine 13 

Tension 14 

T. R. Dionysus: a. Zagreus 15 

T. R. Dionysus: 6. Bromios 16 

T. R. Dionysus: c. Bacchus 17 

Four-Square 18 

Culture 19 

T. Moralistic Roosevelt 20 

Nineteen Twelve 21 

Nineteen Twenty 22 

Kultur: a 23 

Kultur: b 24 

The Liberal 25 



Truths Astringent 26 

Truths Expansive 27 

Fulget Crucis Mysterium : a 28 

Fulget Crucis Mysterium: b 29 

L'Intuition Bergsonienne , 30 

The Highbrow Press 31 

The Pair of Shears 32 

The Cross-moving Blade: a 33 

The Cross-moving Blade: b 34 

The Cross-moving Blade : c 35 

The Cross-moving Blade: d 36 

Envoy 37 

Pjsan Antiphonal 38 

Apotheosis: a 39 

Apotheosis: 6 40 



INTRODUCTION 

These poems of Father Wilbur's must surely be ranked 
among the most successful of all efforts at political portrai- 
ture. Their place as poetry, their claim to success in putting 
politics into sonnets, will be much discussed. That technical 
question, if it be a technical one, I must leave to persons more 
technically competent. Humanly it is clear that these things 
by Father Wilbur in rhythm and rhyme reach the end and 
aim of art. They stretch the mind to new perceptions of the 
beauty and terror and humor of the theme they cover, and 
they carry us through fancy to truth not perceived by scien- 
tific means. Their judgment of Theodore Roosevelt is there- 
fore essentially an aesthetic judgment. 

Being so, the personality of their author might be irrelevant. 
If good wine needs no bush, art needs no biography. An aes- 
thetic judgment proves or disproves itself. But this judgment 
here before us, besides being aesthetic, is frankly political and 
philosophical. Or, rather, it arrives at its aesthetic conclusion 
through a use, bold and lavish, of political and philosophical 
thought. The question therefore arises properly: What have 
been the mental experiences of this author to fit him to form 
such a judgment? The cleverness of the work of art cannot be 
established by any establishment of the cleverness of the art- 
ist; but when an artist insists on giving us the location of the 



C xiv ] 

thought of Theodore Roosevelt in the history of the thought 
of the world, we are justified in a certain curiosity regarding 
his own mental history and character. For this reason, and 
within the limits which it sets, I venture to draw on a few 
of my personal recollections of Russell Wilbur. 

I knew him first at a supper club which was formed in the 
environs of Northwestern University ostensibly to listen to 
the conversation of all of its members. I hope I do no injus- 
tice to the other members and give no offense to Father 
Wilbur when I say that the final purpose of the club was to 
listen principally to him. He was the conversational and in- 
tellectual amazement of my undergraduate days. He was 
himself still an undergraduate, and not yet a Catholic. He 
was especially skilled in Matthew Arnold and in all the con- 
troversies with which Matthew Arnold surrounded himself 
in England. He seemed to live largely in Arnold's hour. Faith 
was receding from earth's human shore. But what faith is, 
and whence it comes, and where it goes, held him even then. 
It held us too, when he spoke. His interest in philosophy (if 
one may still use the word broadly) was such that he could 
even transmit it. 

We were not certain, however (and I mention this doubt of 
ours about him simply to indicate a certain comprehensive- 
ness in his talents), whether he would grow up to be a pro- 
fessional philosopher or a professional operatic singer. His 
voice justified the stage. He was an artist in music before he 
was an artist in verse. We could imagine him, and the train- 



ers of his voice did imagine him, singing to the public. We 
also imagined him sitting in the dust of a library doing his 
absorbing trick of turning the combats of philosophers into 
personal struggles between amusing persons. 

He thereupon became head of the Northwestern University 
Settlement in Chicago and went in for social reform. We 
were not altogether surprised. The personalities which he put 
into philosophy, the gossip and the chatter about Huxley and 
Clifford with which he sprinkled Huxley's and Clifford's con- 
troversial views, had already apprised us of his interest in 
human beings. He continued, out of books as in books, to be 
most curiously capable of insatiably making the acquaintance 
of people in the very course of insatiably making the acquaint- 
ance of abstracted and formulated ideas. 

In the multitudes of people he came to know while he was 
head of the Northwestern University Settlement there were 
three who had a special importance for the future sonneteer 
of Theodore Roosevelt. The first was Jane Addams. Her and 
her Tolstoianism Russell Wilbur knew well, and her and her 
personal character he reverenced with the humility which 
people feel toward Jane Addams and toward few other char- 
acters among us. When afterwards he turned aside to follow 
the strange militaristic god of Oyster Bay, he turned with his 
eyes open. He had seen non-resistance. He had seen it at its 
most beautiful. 

He came to know also Raymond Robins, greatest of ora- 
tors among the persons called radicals, afterwards head of 



the American Red Cross Mission (with many characteristic 
adventures) in Russia during the war; and, thirdly, he came 
to know Medill McCormick, a young man from highly con- 
servative antecedents (such as the Chicago Tribune), now 
United States Senator from Illinois. Robins and McCormick 
and Miss Addams all went into the Progressive Party and 
became large in it. Together they were a whole picture of it, 
spread intimately before Russell Wilbur's eyes. 

In Jane Addams he could see the people who followed 
Theodore Roosevelt with immense devotion to Social Jus- 
tice, but with scant conviction about Two Battleships a 
Year. In Medill McCormick he could see the people who with 
hard heads but open eyes perceived the social necessity 
and the social human decency of Roosevelt's programmes of 
reforms. In Robins he could see the people who walked in the 
middle, who were vehemently for social justice, but who, as 
they showed when the Great War broke out, were equally for 
the sterner needs of national defense and physical justice. 
In the three of them together he could see the whole political 
appeal of the most complex and most vivid of all Theodore 
Roosevelts — the Theodore Roosevelt of 1912. 
i In the midst of this picture and of this appeal, as they 
grew toward completion through many years, Russell Wilbur 
left the Northwestern University Settlement and became an 
Episcopal clergyman, and then left Chicago and was arch- 
deacon in the cathedral of the Episcopal diocese of Fond du 
Lac. From time to time we saw him, expressing to us, occa- 



I xvii ] 

sionally, his growing conviction that one could not get very 
far, after all, by taking the unity of the visible Church in a 
Pickwickian sense; and fairly soon he was in the presence of 
the Roman Catholic archbishop of St. Louis, being inducted 
into the Roman Catholic Communion. He went then to Italy, 
to Rome, and studied, and returned to St. Louis, and began 
the duties, which he still performs, of assistant parish priest 
in St. Cronan's parish. 

i At the risk of seeming to say too much for my friend, I 
must confess and affirm that it seems to me to be unlikely that 
many men among those who speak to us through their 
writings have ranged the world's thought more actively than 
Father Wilbur — both the thought welling up out of the 
ground in our own day and the thought surviving to us in 
the great streams of discovery and of authority out of other 
days. His wealth, his extravagant wealth, of historical allu- 
sion and of modern phrase in the sonnets ensuing is perhaps 
a quite ample hint of his comprehensiveness of observation 
and of appreciation; and one might almost say that out of 
comprehensiveness these sonnets take their first motive and 
their final value. They do not give us the Roosevelt of a 
faction or of a moment. They give us Roosevelt's assemblage 
of conflicts, of human eternal conflicts, demanding to be 
resolved. 

Father Wilbur saw Theodore Roosevelt vigorously resolv- 
ing them. He saw him, and he has portrayed him, as a sort of 
Titanic human mountain-range in which the peaks of the 



C xv'iii ] 

values of Radicalism and the peaks of the values of Tory- 
ism rise tumultuously — and in their very tumultuousness 
rightly and sanely — together. Through Theodore Roosevelt 
Father Wilbur observes and essays a synthesis of the eternal 
Radicalism and of the eternal Toryism of living life and 
also a triumphant assertion of the superiority of moral dis- 
cernment which thought in the heights of action gains over 
thought in the shades of theory. 

So his judgment of Roosevelt comes to be a judgment in 
personality. It is true, as he himself says, that he has con- 
fined himself to a consideration of Roosevelt "the public 
man" and has not attempted, and in fact has deliberately 
refrained from attempting, to "do justice to the nobility and 
the purity and the charm of Mrs. Roosevelt's husband, Alice 
Roosevelt's father, Oyster Bay's neighbor, Seth Bullock's 
friend, and Mr. Whigham's table-companion." This is true, 
and it is also true, as he himself again says, that "when I call 
Theodore Roosevelt envious, jealous, selfish, spiteful, and 
so on, I am speaking of him wholly in his public aspect." 
Yes; but he is speaking of him, nevertheless, as a personality 
in action and not as a political platform or even merely a 
political mechanician. The judgment begins perhaps by being 
political. It ends certainly by being entirely personal — a 
vision of a man, of a man striving toward those issues of 
character which the State, like every other human institu- 
tion, raises and carries to some sort of further development, 
noble or base. 



C xix 3 

To the seeing of this vision Father Wilbur brings at least 
a mind which has traveled, and has tarried for meditation, 
on more than one slope of the ascent to truth. Wholly a 
Catholic, partly a Tory, very much a Progressive, he could 
not have written these sonnets except after and through all 
his wanderings and sojournings. His philosophical materials 
must frankly be understood for what they are, in their 
Catholicism, in their Toryism, in their Progressivism, in 
their rejection of all straight-laced political sects and coteries. 
They are materials of a long accumulation, in a highly indi- 
vidualized combination. I do not claim for them any pre- 
eminence over all other sets of materials usable. My purpose 
is simply to note them, and to introduce Father Wilbur in 
the noting, and to say of them: — 

As an artist Father Wilbur must speak for himself. As 
a thinker he may confidently be said to come to his paint- 
ing of the political scene with a box of colors varied and 
abundant. 

William Hard 

Washington 
May, 1919 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
A VERSE SEQUENCE 



C 3 3 



PROEM 

a. GRAVE 

I cannot bring thee flawless works of art; 
For first, in middle years, thou 'st moved my soul 
To pen thy portrait, illustrate the whole 
Of thy magnificent and turbid heart. 

Never before in life has 't been my part 

To speak in rhyme; to spend the stingy dole 

Of a small gift; or burn my scanty coal 

Of thought and passion; feel the Muse's smart. 

It goads me much to know so many blind 
When right before their eyes upon the stage 
Of our own time there looms one who doth bind 
Ulysses' tireless craft with Hector's rage. 
Look! sons and daughters of Columbia, find 
An epic hero on her living page! 



CO 



PROEM 

b. GAY 

Spirit of Roosevelt! Strenuously descend 

And take all pale consistency away; 

Give me blunt, forthright speech the truth to say; 

Let rough and smooth in due proportion blend. 

Let there be smack and smatter reverend 
Of classic letters' now archaic day, 
With gusto, too, of snappy modern lay — 
All which, well pondered, suits the gear I tend. 

Great Theodore, wert thou of lesser span 
This work one had not dared to perpetrate; 
If thou these reckless lines dost deign to scan 
One hopes that thou canst bear to estimate: 
Better the faithful wounds of friendly man 
Than thrusts of enemy exacerbate. 



[ 5 ] 



ANTITHESES 

a 

Too childlike to dissimulate thy soul 
Its envy, pride, ambition, self-regard; 
Too hero-spirited to let the hard 
Average eyes see clear thy purpose whole. , 

Too framed for action and for common life 

To please the artist, scholar, sage, or saint; 

Of sloth and cowardice so free from taint 

That with the crowd, too, thou art doomed to strife. 

And yet of that crowd's greater, saner part 
Its manlier, homelier traits and instincts sound, 
Time-honored decencies, the voice thou art, 
The type, exponent. Thus in thee is found, 
Though of patrician mould, high Nietzschean heart, 
Of simple democratic faith the ground. 



en 



ANTITHESES 

b 
Silk-stockinged mugwump, thou didst vote for Blaine! 
When Harvard's famed Porcellian Club had sent 
Thee boist'rous forth to exercise thy bent 
For giving academic persons pain. 

High-souled reformer, thou didst pact with Piatt! 
After "alone in Cuba" thou a war 
Hadst reckless won. But Piatt was passing sore 
Thou didst enchain the corporations fat 

To the State's car. Course antithetical 

Thou dost pursue — the Union League Club's pride 

And its despair. Career antipodal, 

Now brash, now Machiavellian. Nought can hide 

That still, in this grim hour, there is unfurled 

Thy banner, Play-boy of the Western World^ 



c; 7 3 



ELAN VITAL 

Elan vital from what pulsating deep 

Near to this Universe's very core, 

What reservoir tumultuous, from what store 

Of fiery energy dost seething sweep, 

As rushing waters o'er Niagara leap, 

A flood of life and power, with mighty roar 

Of joy exultant, through the soul's wide door 

Where Roosevelt's will a parlous guard doth keep. 

It is heroic task to curb the tide 

Of life that comes too quick to be controlled, 

To harness such immitigable power. 

Then honor him who, though he cannot hide 
The turbulence of passion through him rolled, 
Stands tense, the master of his fate, each hour. 



C 8 3 



THE PLATITUDINARIAN 

The truths by which man chiefly lives are few — 

Trite, simple, platitudinous, and plain; 

Our "intellectuals" can see no gain 

In quaffing ever such insipid brew 

Of doctrine. Thou — of all the sniffing crew 

Of radicals, professors, aesthetes — bane, 

Though rich-sophisticated twice again 

As much as they, dost through thy whole life view, 

Full of a kind of ecstasy and joy, 

This simple homespun store of tested truth. 

So energized thy soul, nothing can cloy 

Its hearty maw that eager, decent youth 

Willingly hears; which makes thee, tireless boy, 

Of threadbare maxims preacher without ruth. 



CO 



THE GOLDEN THREAD 

Thy master passion, Roosevelt, is the State; 
Not formula thereof, abstract, jejune; no sour 
Teutonic theory of unbridled power 
Absolved from moral check. That dost thou hate. 

But passion concrete, born of thy innate 
Love of America, that she be dower 
Of freemen bold, united; shining tower 
Of justice and of culture; valor's mate. 

Ambitious, envious, selfish as thou art, 

Thou hast thy deepest self identified 

With this high dream. Or rather, it's the heart 

Of thy unconscious purpose; oft belied 

By single acts of thine, it is the chart ' 

By which the Unseen Powers thy course decide. 



I 10 3 



SUN SPOTS 
a 

Demagogue arts and tricks of charlatan, 
Manipulator's ruses, astute shifts, 
Consummate use of histrionic gifts, 
Resourceful exploit of thy fellow man — 

These things the Muse of History will scan 
Ironically when her pen she lifts 
To make thy record, when from silt she sifts, 
Of thy career, its precious shining plan. 

Knowing earth's satellite cannot prevent 
Th' intrusion of the lower element 
Although she governs sure the tidal boon; 

Thy passion, rancor, violence will be, 
For Clio, foam and surge upon the sea 
Wind-swept, but yet obedient to the moon. 



C » 3 



SUN SPOTS 

b 

Even thy envy's captious pride will seem 
Not weakness base of an else noble mind; 
But a creative artist's quick, purblind 
Impatience exigent, his turbid gleam 
Of petulance, because he cannot deem 
In other's work, however fitly wrought, 
The unique end achieved himself had sought, 
The beauty singular of his own dream. 

Jealous Prometheus stole the fire from heaven. 

Unenvious, likely had not felt the nudge 

To such emprise. And thus was gained the leaven 

Of technic arts. Then blessed be the grudge 

Of Japheth and th' Ouranidai eleven 

The Titan brood — thus do the Muses judge. 



C 12 3 



TEMPERAMENT 

'T is melancholy gives unto the mind 
Reflection, elevation; to the style 
Distinction, whether long the bitter file 
For beauty simple or severe doth grind. 

Thy soul and work miss not rotundity 
Of content, pith, force, humor, lively wit; 
Yet, lacking melancholy, never hit 
Burke's splendor and his rich profundity. 

Depths and shoals of this strange temperament, 

To choicest natures as their portion sent, 

In thee do wholly want; thou lovest not 

The Rabelaisian jest and uncouth folly 

Of Lincoln's surcharged soul; and never got 

His brooding, high, majestic melancholy. 



C '3 ] 



THE PHILISTINE 

T was Cromwell, Luther, Bunyan — Arnold named 
Philistines, though ascribing genius great; 
Had the sharp critic lived to see thy state 
Another of like mould he had proclaimed. 

In spite of savor in thee of the famed 
Admirable Crichton, maugre elate 
Romantic soul, aristocratic gait, 
Thou too, Philistine, must be gently blamed. 

'T is this that from thy side, alas, doth drive 
Some choicest spirits, sons of Science cool, 
Or to sweet Beauty's splendor all alive; 

'T is this that lovers keen doth alienate 
Of poor Assisi's blithe and holy fool 
And of rich Florence's stern laureate. 



C 14] 



TENSION 

The circle's perfect rondure smugly swings 
About one point. Th' ellipse — from foci two 
Antagonistic generated, true 
To inner law of tension — to me brings ] 
Similitude of thee. Thy nature rings 
With joy of common comradeship, the dew 
Of leaves of grass is on thee. Yet there 're few 
Like thee with eagle's eye, beak, talons, wings. 

Two mystics mind me of like conflict tense, 
Twin morning stars, some say, of a new dawn; 
Exclude poetic genius which anoints 
Their names; include thy healthy bourgeois sense; 
And lo! thy soul's ellipse is rightly drawn — 
Whitman and Nietzsche are thy focal points. 



[ 15 2 



T. R. DIONYSUS 

a. ZAGREUS 

Sometimes Lord Dionysus is a Bull 
Furiously mad, with bellowing roar; 
About him Maenads and Bacchantes pour, 
And wooded heights with echoing cries are full. 

Sometimes Lord Dionysus is a Snake 
Whose cunning length lies coiled amidst the grass; 
Now hissing spite when prey too far doth pass 
Or quick up barren crags his cave to take. 

So men of fresh primeval glance and pith 

Did body forth strange likenesses that lie 

'Twixt beasts and souls, and plastic wove their tale 

Of gods and heroes. Had we power of myth 

Left fictile in us, bacchic we would cry, 

Evoel Roosevelt-Dionysus 3 hail I 



C i«3 



T. R. DIONYSUS 

b. BROMIUS 

Lord Dionysus is the burgeoning Spring, 
The Lord of Many Voices, when the rush 
Of mountain torrents breaks the frozen hush 
Of valleys where shrill revels soon will ring. , 

New sap of life to tree and grass doth bring 
A birth again to quickened breath. The rush, 
In green luxuriance, lines the streams which gush 
From cool far dells o'er moss and stones to sing. 

O Mystery of Life, rank, pulsing, wild, 

Which swift through plants, beasts, men doth ceasele 

course, 
Rich in surprises, strange fantastic forms — 

Is it too much to see in him thy child, 

Many- voiced Roosevelt, whose unflagging force 

Our sluggish torpor stirs, our chill blood warms? 



C 173 



T. R. DIONYSUS 

C. BACCHUS 

Iacchos! Iacchos! heartening Vine, 

Spirit of Ecstasy, mantic descend; 

Make of our sloth and our cowardice end 

When through our veins runs thy maddening wine. 

Break down the barriers behind which repine 
Powers long pent up which yearn for release; 
Give to the humdrum of habit surcease, 
Exhilaration, elation, divine. 

"Iacchos! Iacchos! charlatan drunk" — 
Thus bellowed round thee the plutocrat ring; 
Pompous nonentities all in a funk, 
Smitten as liars in far Ishpeming; 
Varlets in torpor conservative sunk 
Ken not thy bacchanals rightly to sing. 



C 18 ] 



FOUR-SQUARE 

The honest, rugged Cleveland prized thy youth, 
Worked through thee, with thee, in now far-off days. 
Censorious Godkin, exigent, did praise 
Thy double task commissional. Uncouth 
Cow-punchers, prize-fighters, in hearty sooth 
Thee comrade deem. And Clio, in amaze 
At versatility, doth crown with bays 
"The Winning of the West," its verve, its truth. 

Woodmen of Maine, half-breeds of Canada, 
Grave bishops heavy laden with their years, 
In South America and Africa, 
Of hard apostolate 'mid wildest parts, 
Whom memory of thy friendly sojourn cheers 
Grant thee the freedom of their loyal hearts. 



I 19 ] 



CULTURE 

The politician, sportsman, in thee, hide 
Somewhat thy worth of scholar genuine. 
Thyself, in thine own instinct's cunning fine, 
Dost, of set purpose, show thy ruder side. 

Here, dost thou judge, coarse, massive charms reside 
To draw and hold the crowd, who scarce divine 
That culture, finer manners, wit are thine, 
That stores of learning in thy mind abide. 

Our " intellectual " classes make pretense 
Thy public side is all there is of thee; 
Thy gross humanity gives them offense. 

Which, one may guess, is all the more intense 
'Cause virtue thine and domesticity 
Lend to their favored vices no defense. 



C 20 1 



T. MORALISTIC ROOSEVELT 

Your "radical" and "intellectual" 

Is just as full of science as can be; 

Zoology hath e'en his benison; 

He knows full well it brings home venison. 

Why is he full of hate effectual, 

Thou first-rate "outdoor scientist," 'gainst thee? 

Is it because thou art spectacular? 

Lack Wilson's elegance vernacular? 

Or is 't because in matters sexual 

Pertaining to Anadyomene 

Thou art no better than old-fashioned soul 

When't comes to unions free and birth-control? 

I think just there I 've made the stroke heuristic 
The New Republic calls thee "moralistic." 



C 21 3 



NINETEEN TWELVE 

I like thee now, but I did like thee more 

In nineteen twelve, when all the obscene train 

Of Pharisees and Sadducees, with bane 

Of lawyer-vermin, hypocrites, and corps 

Of pimps and panders to the mighty whore 

Plutocracy, like Penrose, Butler, Crane, 

Did spit upon thee. All who grind amain 

The faces of God's poor, and burdens sore, 

Too heavy to be borne, on children bind 

With fetters galling-tight of judge-made law, 

Encompassed thee and maddened thee to schism. 

Sepulchres whitened! Where there's nought to find 
Save dead men's bones, and coming from their maw, 
The acrid stench of foul conservatism. 



C 22 3 



NINETEEN TWENTY 

Oh, do not trust them! Though thy course doth lie 
At present close to theirs and they do aim 
To use thee, aye, to crown thee, for their game, 
With leadership. Keep thou a wary eye! 

They are not with thee. In dank, foetid stye 

Of plutocratic greed can burn no flame 

Of nationalist hope, as thine the same, 

Whose heart from Mammon's lust is clean and dry. 

Let them not use thee, but do thou use them ! 
Their skill and wealth right fitly are empowered 
To arm the host that thou wilt lead, 'gainst horde 
Of semi-Bolsheviki, whether stem 
Of Marx or Wells, with millions richly dowered 
By Hearst, by Baruch, and by Henry Ford. 



C 2 3 ] 



KULTUR 

a 

On Magna Charta and the Bill of Rights 

One cannot live forever; e'en Rousseau, 

Tom Paine, and Jefferson do somewhat grow 

Shop- worn; some exigency in us fights 

To force us upward unto greater heights 

Than Marx, Lassalle, or Proudhon e'er could know; 

With richer, higher hope we learn to glow 

Than Bentham's sons, the Cobdens, Mills, and Brights. 

Freedom, equality, and brotherhood 

Do cry for supplement and balance true, 

For order, higher arts, and discipline; 

The State must nurture man's completest good, 

Although the finished specimens be few — 

Here Aristotle should our suffrage win. 



L 2 4 ] 



KULTUR 

b 

All is not wrong in the "Kultur" ideal; 

'T will live in more humane, more gracious form; 

But synthesized with Anglo-Saxon norm 

Of freedom; stamped with democratic seal. 

O'er time's strange sea, of man's emprise the keel 
Moves on to richer havens through this storm. 
Freedom is not enough; an envious swarm 
Of pedants only e'er must equal feel. 

The rich complex of values that thou hast, 

The many-raying facets of thy soul, 

Th' integrity of instinct rooted fast 

In thy complete, will-dominated whole: 

'T is these, with grit, vim, gumption that should last 

To pilot us to culture's social goal. 



C 25 ] 



THE LIBERAL 

A liberal yes, a libertarian no. 

Although not fond of jurist pedantry, 

No formalist to press the tyranny 

Of stale convention, though inclined to go 

Too cross-quick to thy goal, scorning the slow 

Safe round-about of regularity; 

Thou'rt yet of order and authority 

Th' uncompromising friend; the anarch's foe. 

Full well thou lov'st that each should have free lot 

To build his destiny, his own course plan; 

Other equality than this forgot 

Thou hold'st the trained, free, bold, upstanding man 

As culture's goal — a humanist, but not, 

To suit the age, humanitarian. 



C * 6 1 



TRUTHS ASTRINGENT 

That even right cannot dispense with might, 
That God himself is Love but also Power; 
That gentle rectitude alone the hour 
Of evil cannot stay nor cure its blight; 

That e'en Utopia cannot long subsist 
In peace and frugal plenty, without light 
Of culture high, nor this, without the right 
Of excellence on power to close its fist; 

That man's task, to be sure, is to transform 
What of the ape and tiger doth persist, 
But also of the rabbit to resist 
The rutting, of the lamb the silly, norm: 

These truths astringent, tonic, thou hast taught, 
Stern realist, by mollycoddles fought. 



I 27 ] 



TRUTHS EXPANSIVE 

That in each man a fund of worth doth lie, 

That all have profit of the good of each; 

That Commonwealth therefore the hand should reach 

Of opportunity that each may try; 

That loving solidarity of men 
In brotherhood no task can find too high, 
No racial barrier built beneath the sky 
Eternally this mystic force can pen: 

These truths expansive are the constant strain 
Of souls adorably one-sided. Ken 
They will not take of stinking, stagnant fen 
In man, that grit and discipline must drain. 

Only in Roosevelt's whirling orb there could 
Ensphered be Jane Addams, Leonard Wood. 



C * 8 1 



FULGET CRUCIS MYSTERIUM 

a 
An age of concentration stands and knocks, 
Not of expansion. It is Gobineau 
And Nietzsche, more than Tolstoi and Rousseau, 
Can steel our purpose to withstand the shocks 
Of Asia and the swarthy land that locks 
The Middle Sea. And yet we must not throw 
The Cross of Christ away nor headlong go 
From Rousseau's whirlpool on to Nietzsche's rocks. 

The Cross of Christ! Truth's self is Cross and strange! 

How tawdry gleams the facile, specious breed 

Of smooth idealists by Roosevelt's fire! 

Who never learn that progress cannot change 

The law of the Cross, the core of Roosevelt's creed: 

Pay with thy body, Man, for souVs desire I 



I 29] 



FULGET CRUCIS MYSTERIUM 

b 

So facts-astringent facts-expansive cross, 
And of their transverse tension there is born 
(On Chaos' breast like jewelled bauble worn) 
The universe itself, the Holy Cross; 
Upon which stretched in agony doth toss 
Christ's Body Mystical, the human race. 
Oh ! happy they who early learn to embrace 
The mystery of pain and count fyut dross 

Its blood and sweat! Of such, of such, art thou, 
Grim-visaged Berserker! Oh! there have lain 
In thy Norse cult of valor — ripening how 
We know not — seeds of wheat of finer grain, 
Not all unlike to that of old, I trow, 
Which grew — the Bread of Heaven — near Sharon's 
plain. 



[30]] 



L'INTUITION BERGSONIENNE 

There is an intellectual instinct deep, 
Concrete-intuitive it takes its course; 
More than abstract-discursive reasoning's force 
It has, the depths to plumb, the heights to sweep. 

Experience 't is that makes its pulses leap, 

Imaginative sympathy its source; 

With all reality it holds discourse 

Where through subconscious mind life's currents seep. 

For what of intellect the statesman needs, 
Of speculative power, thy gifts are poor; 
Where Wilson thinks thou oft canst only feel. 

But when the future judges by thy deeds 
'T will hold thee, pragmatist, an instinct-sure 
Intuitive evaluer of the real. 



C si 3 



THE HIGHBROW PRESS 

The Survey doth not like thee; e'en Saint Jane 
In grief doth ban thee from the sacred fane. 
The Public cannot bear thee; Henry George 
In hidden heavens thunderbolts doth forge 
To lay thee low. From mouldy cerements 
Of mid- Victorian days, there come the vents 
Of Garrisonian passion's high disdains, 
With clank of Dives Villard's golden chains. 

The Nation to the New Republic cries, 
The latter to the Masses — cunning elf 
Itself to "liberate" by quick disguise. 

They charge thee not with murder, pilfered pelf; 
No! No! 'T is thus the accusation lies: 
Oh, Theodore j why art thou so thyself 1 



Cs» ] 



THE PAIR OF SHEARS 

Our English cousins hold in better light 

One feature strong of Party Government: 

That Opposition's constant drive is sent 

As goad, lash, check and complement, with might 

Of criticism sharp, with bitter spite 

Of rivalry, to press the course's bent. 

We 'd hold in our good-natured sentiment 

Wilson and thee as brothers in our sight. 

A pair of brothers! That's to fall in rut 
Of ordinary thought. The notion fades 
When one beholds how 't is with pair of shears 
Columbia's hand firm-flexing skills to cut, 
'Mid gnash and bite of two cross-moving blades, 
The ample garment of her coming years. 



I S3 H 



THE CROSS-MOVING BLADE 

a 

The moon that saw, o'er Flanders bounds, the might 
Of frightfulness break forth from Prussian lair, 
Found thee obliged in gratitude to spare 
Three months of strenuous battle for the bright 
Cordon of leaders who in name of right 
Had joined thee in adventure bold. 1 This care 
Scarcely discharged, and thou didst rouse, with blare 
Of trumpet voice and torch of flaming spite 
'Gainst Belgium's foes, thy sleepy countrymen 
Fat gorged by Mammon's feast, by shams deceived, 
Adulterously fond — or full of hate — 
Of other lands. O Gambler, it was then, 
With past reverses still all unretrieved, 
That thou didst risk on single throw thy fate. 

1 In August, September, and October, 1914, Colonel Roosevelt was engaged in 
supporting Messrs. Gifford Pinchot, James Garfield, Raymond Robins, Victor 
Murdock, and others of the Progressive Party leaders of 1912 who were seeking 
election to the United States Senate or other important offices. His well-known 
letter, insisting upon our responsibility in the matter of Belgium, appeared in the 
New York Times November 8. 



I 34 ] 



THE CROSS-MOVING BLADE 

b 
O Patriot-Gambler! thou a game didst play 
For stake more precious than thine own career: 
Thy country's unity, the costly gear 
On gaming-table left by strange delay 
Of one whose hand might have been raised to stay 
Poor Belgium's rapers, not to soothe our ear 
By bland vibration of the lute-strings blear 
Of strict neutrality. Let future day 
Assess what compensation did reside 
In Wilson's tactic. T was thy costly part 
To stir our conscience, mind us of our state 
Unready; racial predilections chide; 
Shame us to stand, more tensely one in heart, 
Th' intrepid steady challengers of fate. 



C 35 ] 



THE CROSS-MOVING BLADE 

c 

Theodore Roosevelt, thou didst will this war, 

And, more than any single other, force 

The issue of our entrance; didst divorce 

Our nation's heart from sloth and sophists' lore; 

Into unwilling ears a stream didst pour 
Of fiery warning; didst pursue a course 
Brittle and steep; thy friends without remorse 
Betray; our rulers press with cavils sore. 

So if this war shall bring — God will it may ! — 

First fruits to realize thy lifelong dream 

Impassioned, of America's rebirth 

To tenser unity — then one dare say 

By Washington's and Lincoln's there shall gleam 

Thy name and memory in rival worth. 



[36] 



THE CROSS-MOVING BLADE 
d 

And if by side of thine a name shall gleam — 
For Roland, Oliver; a Jefferson 
Played fitly to thy role of Hamilton — 
'T will be because war shall fulfill a dream 
More lofty than thine own, (to thee doth seem 
Top-lofty?) the sweet hope that there be won 
An everlasting peace and that the sun 
Of world-wide federation shed its beam. 

If this be statesmanship and if the Rome 
Of world-democracy shall pass from bricks 
To marble under Wilson's hand — 't is well! 

And thou wilt something have to learn at home 
At Oyster Bay or, past th' atrocious Styx, 
Upon Elysian fields of asphodel. 



C 37 ] 



ENVOY 

Oh, 't is not thus that I farewell would say, 
With smirk ironical and banter bland, 
Where all America owes debt too grand 
For instant praise or lasting fame to pay. 

On many a simple man who ne'er did lay 
His eager eyes on thee nor grasp thy hand, 
On many a careworn woman through the land, 
On me, too, debt more personal doth weigh. 

Let all who read, then, know in thee I find — 
All vehement, flawed, turbid as thou art — 
Abundant storehouse whence I feed with dole: 

The sanity and balance of my mind, 
The hope, the joy and valor of my heart, 
The energy and passion of my soul. 



C 38 3 



PiEAN ANTIPHONAL 1 

Lift up your heads, Columbia's mighty gates ! 
Who are they that pass forth? The brave, the young; 
They march, while loving hearts with fears are wrung, 
To France, where destiny on valor waits. 

Be lifted up, Columbia's doors! The fates 

Are dreadful; some must lie unsung, 

Of distant fields and foreign harvests dung, 

While parents mourn their darlings, wives their mates. 

Lift up your heads, Columbia's gates, and sing! 
Who passes in unto my heart of hearts ? 
'T is he whose sons do whole fulfillment bring, 
Whose breed dares finish what the father starts; 
They pass together to th' Eternal Spring, 
They pass, with all who, valiant, do their parts. 

1 Written to be added to the already completed Sonnets and Quatorzains Roose- 
veltian after the death of Lieutenant Quentin Roosevelt. 



[ 39*1 



APOTHEOSIS 

a 

Resilient world, Gargantuan, picturesque, 
Blown by no breath of dire caducity, 
World of gigantic, comic vanity, 
Of shapes fantastic, lovable, grotesque! 

Would that Cervantes, Shakespeare, Rabelais - 
Prolific three — had lived to see the hour 
When Nature's self put forth her comic power 
Quixote's antitype at Oyster Bay! 

O gargoyle shape! The smile dentiferous, 
The cowboy hat, eyeglasses, and big stick, 
The gesture of "The Luck of Roaring Camp"! 

Gay wilt thou live, timeless, vociferous, 
Breathing the air of egotism thick 
With Falstaff, Tartarin, and Mrs. Gamp. 



t 4° ] 



APOTHEOSIS 

b 

Be still, thou ribald bard! Hast thou no shame? 
When thine eyes rest on one of Plutarch's kind, 
The scion of an elder race, art blind? 
Be still and fear a living bush aflame 
With puissant will; revere an august name 
Which gallant youths in days to come will find 
In many a tale by new Froissarts designed 
To prick clean hearts to court a shining fame. 

Hark! what strange horns are blowing! Silence, bard! 
Siegfried and Roland from the welkin's dome 
Their clarions wind ; and bursting mortal shard, — 
Earth's ashes to earth's ashes, loam to loam, — 
Theodore the Viking journeys to Asgard 
To find mid th' iEsir his empyreal home. 



dbe Rtoerjtfbe pre** 

CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS 
U . S . A 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




I III 



013 980 954 3 



